Happy ending for a documentary: “Trem da Serra”, a poem of Brazilian integration

This paper focuses on modernist poetry book Trem da Serra, published by Ernani Fornari in 1928. The poems deal with a train trip from Porto Alegre to Caxias do Sul, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil’s extreme south. Their main subject is the effect immigration had on the region, and it defends the notion of miscegenation as the means to incorporate foreign influences. Texts by authors such as Graça Aranha, Monteiro Lobato, João Pinto da Silva and Plínio Salgado are used to demonstrate how seriously that state of affairs was debated in the late 1920’s.

Keywords:
Brazil; immigration; miscegenation; Brazilian national identity;